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Page 138
would manage somehow to keep them at bay until you could come for me."
Ian sighed again. He wondered why Alinor said he had been overset. It was surprising how tired he felt. His arm ached as if he had been fighting all day. Yet it could not have taken long to subdue 14 ill-armed and ill-trained men. He turned from Alinor and counted. Eleven. Three were missing. That was what was wrong. His eyes swept the circle of men-at-arms.
"You allowed three to escape," he said harshly.
"Nae, thegn," Jamie replied. He gestured quickly, and three trembling creatures were dragged forward.
"Kill them," Ian said coldly.
"Ian," Alinor protested, laying a hand on his arm. "They did me no harm."
He looked down at her. "They dared to threaten violence to a gentlewoman. If they had only dared think of it, they would deserve to die." He nodded sharply to his man-at-arms, and repeated, "Kill them." To Alinor he said, "I am in a hurry, or I would have had them drawn and quartered in the town in public as an example.''
The berserker was completely gone, Alinor realized, watching him. There was no hatred, no emotion at all, in his order to kill. It was a rational, considered act. As Alinor thought it over, she realized she would have been capable of giving the same order had she not been momentarily sickened by what she had already seen. There was also the fact that she could hardly believe what had happened. Alinor could hardly believe that any group of commoners would abduct a gentlewoman. Such a thing had never happened on her lands before, and she had never considered what would be a suitable penalty. Now that she did think of it, her brisk nod mirrored Ian's.
"You are right, my lord."
Suddenly the people in the clearing jerked into normalcy. A babble of voices broke out as the brief

 
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